Monday, March 4, 2013

Test Resistance as a Battle for Democracy

Little by little, parents around the country are learning what most teachers already know, that the testing being planned for the nation's school children is expensive, mind numbing, and borderline abusive. We need to keep hammering that message across, day in day out, and encourage every form of resistance to testing by every constituency. The movement is growing so fast that even the mainstream press has to acknowledge it. But two additional points should also be made- that this level of testing is extremely profitable to test companies, and that the test companies are an integral part of a phalanx of corporations that have a stranglehold on public policy in the United States. Only EXTREME WEALTH INEQUALITY made it possible to impose a policy this absurd and counterproductive on the nation's school children with virtually no opposition from elected officials or serious discussion in the press. This is an ultimate example of the perversion of democracy due to the excessive concentration of wealth at the top.